Taylor's Law, page 20
“I don’t mix with the people you want to meet.” But Jake was getting the message. Drew wanted him to grovel in public. He laughed to himself. Being seen smoothing Drew’s way at a few social events was a small price to pay for throwing Drew off his scent. Protecting Eleanor was the main game. Eleanor and Tessa.
“You know who does and can get me started. By the time I’ve got custody of the kid, we should be ready to part company.”
“Why ask me? Why didn’t you just employ Rory Davies?” Jake was genuinely curious. Rory was better suited to do the job Drew wanted done. Rory could have sued for custody before Jake had even known.
“I know how strongly you feel about your obligations to the family that took in a snivelling orphan.” Drew rose to his feet, his smile that of a shark circling its prey. “Mum would be pretty devastated not to see the kid anymore. You always say you owe her.”
The hatred in Drew’s eyes was chilling but liberating as well. Drew’s powerplay was a pincer movement attacking him from two sides, using Eleanor and his parents to blacken Jake’s name.
Eleanor would fight, but she’d hate Jake whether she won or lost. If she won, she might think the risk of letting Tessa spend time with Bron and Peter was too great. Bron wouldn’t forgive Jake for losing her newly discovered granddaughter. If Eleanor lost, Drew would most likely park Tessa with Bronwyn. Either way, Drew would always hover, a lone wolf ready to strike without warning.
“You should thank me. I’m giving you the chance to pay my mother back by delivering the grandchild she craves. And I’ve employed Rory. Back-up to keep you on your toes. Make sure you don’t start freelancing.”
“Then he’ll confirm the rules in this state regarding custody. You’ll have to attend a mediation session first.” Time for Jake to push back a little. “The court looks for agreement between the parties. Compromise.”
“What kind of compromise?”
“Eleanor won’t give you custody without a fight. Hasn’t Rory given you a heads up? Given the situation and Tessa’s age, you’ll have to agree to access for Eleanor and her family.” Jake’s knowledge of family law was limited, but common sense was on his side.
Drew shrugged. “She can see the kid sometimes so long as control is mine.”
“You’ll need a strong case to win custody from her.” Jake’s only warning to his cousin.
“Then start building it, coz.”
“I think you’ve misunderstood.” Jake stood. His cousin’s desire to gloat had given him the information he needed. “I can make a few introductions to see you re-established in Sydney. However, representing you in Tessa’s custody case would be a conflict of interest.” He smiled grimly. “I could be restrained from operating. It’s too big a risk when I have no expertise in family law.”
“You were prepared to represent Mum and Dad.” Drew stared at him, his mouth sagging open in disbelief.
“That’s the point. I still do. I’m not sure your interests match theirs.” Jake hoped like hell he was right. But it didn’t matter a damn. He’d use representing his aunt and uncle as a cover for as long as he could.
“I’ll make sure they do,” Drew snarled.
Winning sole custody for Eleanor was Jake’s real conflict of interest. Rory Daniels would trawl through her past, try to suggest Jake’s affair with her made her an unsuitable guardian. He’d probably rake up the old gossip about Chrissy and Jake. Drew would happily destroy Eleanor to punish him.
“I’ll win. Don’t think hiding behind my parents will comfort Ella.” Drew flung the final words as a gauntlet.
Jake sat at his desk, staring into space after his cousin left. Maybe he should thank Drew for bringing him to his senses, for making him see he loved Eleanor. That the magic they made in her tiny apartment, the circle they’d created had become the most important part of his life. Except he’d said the words “let me love you” the first night they’d made love, not understanding the absolute truth of them. Drew enjoyed humiliating him. For the sin of being an orphan who’d moved into his house. But, shit, he’d been nine. Old enough for memories of his parents to give him a hold on sanity.
Tessa was a baby, still making precious memories. She needed Eleanor. God help him, so did he. Keeping secrets from her had been a mistake. Trying to keep their relationship a secret hadn’t protected her from Drew.
Slamming a hand on the table, he pushed himself upright. He couldn’t afford any more mistakes. The slightest whisper of his real intentions could alert Drew to his plans. He couldn’t discount Rory Davies already having him under surveillance. Jake would introduce Drew to any bloody celebrity mover and shaker he named, and secretly build Eleanor’s case. When the time came, he’d take Drew down.
He snatched up his phone. Nothing from Eleanor, when texting each other half a dozen times a day had become a habit. His fault. Last night he’d pleaded a business engagement. Another text saying he was working tonight would be a denial of all they’d shared. To protect her he’d be a callous bastard. Picturing her shock and distress, Jake despised the boy he’d been, who’d allowed Drew to bully him, and the man he was, unable to see another way out of this mess.
* * *
Ella wrapped her coat around herself, although the chill invading her bones was caused by her own misgivings as much as the brisk wind whistling around the square. Jake’s apartment block—a modern, multi-storey security block, professionally landscaped. The top floors would have extensive city views. Jake had an upper-floor apartment. She knew the number, had counted the floors, and the lights were on. She didn’t know what had brought her here tonight. A compelling need to see him, a need for him to reassure her that everything was okay, that Drew had been lying when he rang to tell her he was applying for sole custody of Tessa and Jake was letting him?
It didn’t make sense. But then nothing made sense at the moment.
Jake’s text said he had to work late tonight, yet here he was at barely eight o’clock, home with the lights on. He could be working from home, but she smelled a lie.
A big fat lie, and it was crushing her.
He’d lied once before, hadn’t told her Peter and Bronwyn were his aunt and uncle. He’d said it wasn’t a lie, just a failure to disclose.
Mrs. P was looking after Tessa for a few hours. Now Ella was standing outside Jake’s apartment on an early winter’s night afraid of what she’d learn when she rang his bell.
“Hello, Jake. Can I see you?” she asked when he answered. The click of the buzzer opening the front door sounded a death knell.
Another smooth, silent elevator and she remembered the first day she’d met him, when she’d been wary of Taylor Law and the power the company could wield. Tonight she wanted him to tell her Drew was lying, that Jake wouldn’t stand by and see Tessa taken from her.
He waited at the open door to his apartment. Bare feet, faded jeans, a figure-hugging T-shirt and the thick locks she loved so much, loose. Bed-rumpled was her first impression, and her legs threatened to give way. Was someone else in the apartment? Robert Hall’s betrayal cast a long shadow, undermining her self-confidence as a woman. She’d found Jake out in a lie.
People who lied rarely stopped at one.
“Come in.”
The room slapped Ella with its remoteness. Black and white tones, soulless furnishings and an emptiness that dragged at her. He’d told her about it, how he hadn’t cared where he’d lived when he’d bought it. She struggled to find her bearings, disoriented by the sterile environment. Did living here tell a truer story about who he was than the man who’d shared her chaos and her bed in recent days?
“Would you like a drink?” He’d crossed to a desk, and held up a glass of whisky.
“Please.” She shucked her coat and left it with her bag on the hallstand.
Now that she was here, she didn’t know what to do or say. She loved him. She wanted him. She trusted him. And was terribly afraid he was going to say something to shatter her certainty. She walked further into the room. The gurgle of liquid leaving a bottle, the splash as it landed in fine crystal, the sound of footfalls on bare boards hammered at her. Then he was at her side, pressing the glass of peaty malt into her unsteady hand. She leaned against his shoulder, and because it was her natural inclination, because she couldn’t help herself, she turned and pressed a kiss to the firm, bare skin where the sleeve of his T-shirt ended.
He jerked at her touch. Then whisked the glass out of her hand and swung her into his arms. With a groan, he started kissing her. Desperation leaked from him to her, and Ella was powerless to stop him. She’d been without his touch for two nights now, an eternity.
For an endless time, she floated on a sea of passion, aware his lips had left hers and were trailing along her throat. His busy hands pushed her cardigan off her shoulders. Ella helped him when he tried to free her arms. His fingers raced to the buttons on her blouse and his mouth followed his fingers, sliding down the valley between her breasts. With the buttons free, his thumb slipped the strap from her shoulder, then his warm palm cupped her breast.
They were racing each other, she thought, as if any delay would bring a halt and any halt would be the end of the world.
She surrendered to sensation. He hurried her through a doorway, tumbling with her onto the bed. They rolled. She pulled at his clothing and he tugged at hers until she was panting, sucking in air, and skin brushed skin. She couldn’t deny the slick of heat and need. The scent of his desire was a familiar link between past loving and now. Ella’s gaze met his, and she saw her desperate desire to mate reflected before a word could be spoken to shatter the moment. He pulled on a condom, gripped her hips and pushed between her thighs, entering her in an intense movement, claiming absolute possession from both of them. Reaching her peak, she cried out and exulted in his groan as he toppled after her.
When he rolled away from her, Ella accepted the sting of rejection. The wildness of their passion testimony this was to be their last act of loving. She turned her back, overcome by an urgent need to cover her nakedness.
“Were you going to tell me?” Ella sat on the side of the bed.
“I’m assuming Drew called,” he said flatly, sliding out the opposite side.
“Drew visited yesterday after the DNA results were confirmed. Do you want me to tell you what he wanted, or do you already know?”
“He said he asked you to marry him.” His voice had sharp edges.
“I’m not sure if the word ‘marry’ was mentioned.” Ella’s voice echoed in her head, disconnected from her. “He suggested we hook up and collect a motza from his parents.” His words had been neither question nor statement, rather a lure to someone he believed would take the bait. The friendly manner of their earlier encounters gone, replaced by hot eyes roaming her body as if he had a right to. She located her blouse and pulled it on, buttoning it up with trembling fingers.
“What was your answer?” Jake’s question was a slap in the face.
Had she made love with a man who understood so little about her, who hadn’t instantly known her answer?
“I had no answer when he said Chrissy would have been up for it. When he made me see that my sister, who I knew wasn’t perfect, would have done it.” Drew’s covetous appraisal of her body and bold look had made her feel soiled. Ella found her knickers and trousers and pulled them on, stuffing her bra into her trouser pocket.
“Possible. You knew your sister better than me. She might have made a deal with him.” He grabbed a robe off the bedside chair, belting it tightly. “But, there’s no proof. Chrissy wrote to me, not him, not them. I doubt she had any idea of his parents’ true worth.”
Ella rose to her feet and turned to face him. His unpitying analysis left her uncertain of her next move. “Drew rang again this afternoon. What is going on, Counsellor?”
Letting him gain sole custody of Tessa had Ella plotting violence. Jake’s dull eyes sent a shiver of fear through her. What was going on? Why wouldn’t Jake tell her?
“Answer me, Jake.” Her fingers curled into a fist.
“What did Drew tell you I’m doing?” The half-light of the room left Jake’s face in shadow. His mood was unreadable to her from his posture, his expression or his voice—he’d become the shadow.
Ella pushed her feet into her boots and tucked her socks in her other pocket, while her brain stuttered to a halt. “He’s suing for sole custody of Tessa. Said he’s doing it to give his parents certainty. That you’re representing his parents.” Saying the words aloud while he watched her made them more real. “You’re frightening me, Jake.”
“Did he tell you he’s using Rory Daniels?”
Her heart stopped. If he’d backhanded her, the shock couldn’t have been greater. “The lawyer who helped cheat my parents?”
“I think you should go.”
“What did we just do?” Tears stung the back of her eyes.
“We took what we wanted, without considering consequences.” He fisted a hand in his unruly locks, holding the weight off his face. “I didn’t make any promises.”
“Not in words. Not to me.” She scooped up her cardigan as she stumbled towards the bedroom door. But she’d made promises to him. In her heart, with her body. And had failed to reach him. “Is your loyalty to your family so blind, so total you’d destroy everyone else to give them what they want?”
“I won’t discuss my family.”
She swung back to him. “We’re discussing you and me.”
“You kissed me ...” He halted, lifting and dropping his hands as if he had no idea what came next.
“Silly me. I acted. You reacted.” Her bones ached. She’d completely misread his interest in her. Lust, not care, certainly not love. She’d only imagined the love in his touch. The fallout from her error of judgement was more terrifying than she could have imagined. “My kiss was not an invitation to screw me, literally and figuratively.” She pushed her hands into her cardigan, but it became twisted.
“Eleanor.”
“That makes what we just did the worst kind of lie. You used me.”
Ella raced towards the front door, grabbing her coat and bag from the hall. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think past the huge weight pressing against her chest, suffocating her. She couldn’t bear to wait for the elevator, pushing into the stairwell and hurrying down several flights of stairs before she collapsed onto a concrete step. Nothing made sense anymore. Their lovemaking had been both tender and tough, as if without speaking, they’d known this would be the last time.
The tenderness had been a lie. If he cared at all for her, he’d never put her through this. If he was helping Drew steal Tessa, she couldn’t love him. He’d played her. His betrayal made her want to scream and bite and kick because her heart belonged to him as well as Tessa now. She’d only fight to keep one of them—Tessa.
Another chilly day. Endless cold to match the cold inside Ella as another week passed with no news. The icy wind forced pedestrians to hunch into themselves, to wrap themselves in tight balls to keep the world at bay. If only Ella could. Instead, she trudged from the station to Tony’s chambers on Sydney’s north shore. With parking at a premium, public transport was the fastest and cheapest option for this lunchtime appointment.
To talk strategy. Strategy! The urge to throw back her head and howl at the unfairness of the situation swept over her. A public tantrum would achieve less than nothing, except perhaps a ticket for disturbing the peace. The wheels of justice grind exceeding slow.
What idiot said that?
Three weeks on, and despite Tony’s attempts to expedite the mediation hearing, they didn’t have a date. The toll on her parents and her sister was mounting. The strain in their voices was clear down the phone. Her fault. She’d allowed herself to be seduced by Jake’s charms, by her conviction of his integrity. She’d been wrong.
Tony took his turn reassuring them. The law was there to protect Tessa’s best interests. But having Rory Daniels, with tacit support from Taylor Law, as their opponent a second time tested their confidence in the justice system. Her father, more used to doing than talking, had offered to take Jake’s restitution money—blood money, he called it—and shove it up Jake’s proverbial. Her mother’s calmer counsel prevailed. A better revenge was to spend it on Tony and junior counsel to build their case.
Blood money—the urge to violence—revenge. The use of such words in a conversation about Tessa’s future made Ella’s bones ache.
Every day Ella waited for the guillotine to fall, yet Drew seemed unaware she didn’t have legal custody. Unaware of the content of Chrissy’s letters. He didn’t act as if they were on equal footing, both seeking their first parenting adjudication. Jake knew. She didn’t dare speculate on how he’d use the information, the bonus cards she’d given him when she’d judged he was an honourable man. That like her, he was trying to navigate this minefield to find the best outcome for an innocent child.
So many secrets and lies.
Raising her head to get her bearings, she caught the scent of rain followed by a few large drops. She pictured her umbrella where she’d left it, on the table at home, and grimaced. Terrific. At least she didn’t have far to go. Tony’s building was the next one, on the other side of the Sofitel Hotel. Then Ella spotted Jake standing back to allow a woman to precede him down the stairs. His gaze collided with hers before he dropped his lashes, hiding his thoughts.
“Eleanor.” He stepped forward. “This is Julia Bennett.”
This gorgeous, vivacious, alive-looking woman hanging on his arm was his former fiancée. Another slap at Ella’s self-confidence. A real-time lesson in why Jake had never been seen in public with her. With her hair tumbled from the wind, her face pale despite the makeup she’d started wearing to disguise the dark circles under her eyes, and her still-too-large clothes, she was a mess. Replacing her wardrobe was the least of her worries, but she wished her outfit wasn’t so ill-fitting and dowdy beside this glamorous woman.
“Julia, this is Eleanor Anderson,” he continued.
